Nothing Like the Sun
by MlleClaudine
Summary: O'Brien and Keiko, who's home on leave from her assignment on Bajor, get it on in zero gravity. Originally posted to the old a.s.c. board in 1995 - another name and another lifetime ago. Paramount owns the ball, so if you don't let them play they'll take it and go home.


O'Brien paced outside the airlock, wishing that whoever designed Starfleet uniforms had thought to add pockets so he'd have some place to put his hands. At least these overalls were more comfortable than the standard duty unis worn on starships -– he had been cited countless times for "improper presentation of attire" aboard the _Rutledge_, Captain Maxwell being a stickler for appearances who didn't care for his Tac officer's perpetually open collar and rolled sleeves -– but in practical terms they were about as useful as paper money in a Ferengi negotiation.

It probably didn't help his agitation that he'd had four cups of coffee not half an hour before, partly because Julian had sat there smugly telling him it wasn't healthy to drink so much of the Replimat's murky brew. He was a good man, Julian was, once you got past that sometimes arrogant air he projected to cover his anxieties. But O'Brien could also understand the strange grinding noises that came from Major Kira's direction when the young doctor nattered on about whatever interested him at the moment; he wondered if it would be improper to place bets on how long a speech it would take for her to punch Bashir's lights out.

Meanwhile, the supply shuttle from Bajor was nearly an hour late. Not surprising, since the Militia often used this flight as a training run for new pilots, but irritating nonetheless. Just his luck if a week of planning went down the tubes because some grass-green Private couldn't execute a subatmospheric escape turn. The gamma-shift shuttle transported only cargo deemed nonessential, such as locally grown produce or personal items from home for the Bajorans who couldn't leave the station. Nonessential, that is, except for the two passengers on board this particular vessel.

A telltale lighted on the control pad, signalling that the shuttle had docked at last. Quickly he checked his reflection in a wall panel, running a hand over his unruly hair and giving a tug to his shirt. A dull _whoosh_ as vacuum was displaced by atmosphere, then the ponderous rumbling aside of the heavy doors -– pizza cutters, he called them, though no one else but Commander Sisko, who had grown up working in a restaurant, understood the reference -– and there they were: Keiko, her face alarmingly pale with bruise-colored shadows under her eyes, and little Molly, thumb in mouth, wrapped around her mother's leg.

Happiness and relief flooded through him and edged out concern at their appearance for the moment; he gathered them both in a bear hug, burying his face in Keiko's hair until a tech with a loaded anti-grav pallet politely cleared her throat to let him know he was blocking the passage. He swept up Molly in one arm and Keiko's duffel bag in the other. Keiko was too tired to make small talk, but he could tell by the way she leaned against him as they walked that she was glad to see him.

Inside their quarters, he slung the bag into a corner and watched indulgently as Keiko tucked their daughter into bed. Molly, exhausted, put up none of her usual resistance, not staying awake long enough even for a bedtime story. They stood together watching her sleep a while, then O'Brien palmed the door shut and activated the intercom that would alert them in an emergency.

He picked up Keiko, far too easily. She'd lost weight, and she was bird-slender before; it disturbed him that he could feel individual bones against his arm. In his favorite overstuffed chair, she curled up on his knees, her arms around his neck, her head on his shoulder. "I missed you, lass," he said finally.

"Missed you too."

"Got a surprise for you," he said after another long silence, waggling his eyebrows in his best imitation of a leer.

"What now, O'Brien?" Despite her smile and bantering tone, he didn't miss the undercurrent of wariness.

"Come on, I'll show you." Spilling her off his lap, he led her to the spare bedroom door. With a flourish, he hit the panel that opened it and gestured for her to go inside.

She stared for a minute, then clapped her hands in delight at the sight of an enormous sunken bathtub, almost big enough to swim in, its raised platform taking up nearly all the small space. "Miles! Where did you... _how_ did you...?"

"Won it in a darts match at Quark's. The little troll was planning to put it in one of the holosuites and he rigged the board. Odo found out and awarded it to me by default. Had to beam it directly in there, too; you wouldn't believe how many mass credits it set me back."

"Are you kidding? I'd give ten years of Quark's life for a tub like that. Do you know how long it's been since I've had a real bath?" Suddenly her campsite's portable sonic unit seemed light-years away.

The thing took nearly half an hour to fill. With renewed energy, Keiko bustled around their quarters to unpack. Miles' fanatical neatness with his tools rarely extended to his clothes and other belongings, but for once everything was absurdly tidy, the result of his bribing his friends to help him clean up: stress analysis of a new tennis racket design for Julian, a favor to be named later (she'd said with a mysterious smile) for Dax. In the process, they had felt free to offer him their advice, so the place overflowed with details such as the chunky vase of roses that dominated the living room table and the bluesy Andorian music that wailed softly in the background.

Finally the bath was ready. Keiko tore off her clothes and practically leaped in; O'Brien, skeptically regarding the thermostat that read 62°C, followed much more slowly, letting his feet parboil a moment before gingerly lowering himself into the water. The temperature was far hotter than he could stand comfortably; his heart rate had doubled and his ruddy face was sweating by the time he was completely immersed. It didn't seem to bother Keiko, who lounged with her chin just above the surface, watching his progress with amusement.

When it seemed that he had at last acclimated -– or at least stopped grimacing in pain -– she moved to sit between his legs, leaning back contentedly against his solid chest. "You've been working out."

"Mmhmm." All those games of racquetball and tennis. Poor Julian.

He used a pitcher to scoop up water and pour it over her head, again and again until the silky black hair was completely soaked. Taking a handful of her favorite shampoo, he slowly rubbed the rich lather into her scalp. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the soothing touch that seemed to massage away the hardships of the last few months: sleeping in a tent, in Bajor's harsh mercurial weather; the grinding work of cataloguing the planet's vast assortment of flora and determining which of it could be used or sold or eaten and how best to cultivate it; constantly worrying about a four-year-old who tended to shadow her mother's every movement after coming home from daycare much too subdued. All that seemed to disappear here, washing away like the soap from her hair as her husband again poured water over her head until the last traces were gone.

As he put the pitcher down, she caught his hand, which dwarfed her own. She loved his hands. Large, warm, with strong fingers whose thick, blunt appearance belied their capabilities, they could manipulate a microwelder around the intricate circuitry of an isolinear chip or wield an old-fashioned axe to cut firewood on camping trips with equal ease. But it was the scars that marked an accomplished cellist -– the horn-hard calluses on the tips of the fingers and the side of the thumb of his left hand -– which she loved most of all.

His exceptional musical ability was perhaps the most surprising thing about him, certainly surprising to those who knew him only from casual acquaintance in the bar or the gym. He had tried to explain it to her once, how his mind visualized strands of sound weaving over and through one another until the music became an almost tangible thing that took shape as it was drawn by his hands from the strings of his instrument; lacking words to describe the purity of the connection, he had lapsed into mumbled incoherence. A musician herself (though in a more prosaic way, any skill she had with the clarinet being the result of long enforced practice sessions as a child), she had intuitively understood at least part of what he was trying to say. But she understood it best when he played, when she could hear the soaring liquid voice of the cello and see the expression that illuminated Miles' plain broad face.

She let go his hand. O'Brien saw that she was nodding, almost dozing off, so he stood -– too quickly, swaying, lightheaded for a moment -– and lifted her up out of the water. Wrapping her in a huge towel that waited folded over a heated rack (Julian's suggestion; O'Brien sometimes thought that the young doctor got his ideas about romance out of holonovels), he carried her to their bedroom, where she fell asleep almost immediately.

The slight rise and fall of her chest was the only movement visible in the station's ambient light that spilled in through the oval window. As always, her pale skin seemed to glow in the semi-darkness, and he watched her fondly before finally himself falling asleep.

* * *

Keiko awoke, disoriented. It should have been daybreak, with the _pirri_ birds chirping outside her tent and the last shreds of cool mist clinging to the ground. Here it was still almost dark, the only sounds mechanical in nature and more felt than heard. A familiar curly-haired outline against the window reminded her where she was. She felt stiff and a little sore; she probably hadn't budged an inch all night. Stretching languorously with a yawn wide enough to make her jaw pop, she regarded her husband through half-open eyes. "Good morning."

"Morning? Not half, it isn't. You've nearly slept the clock round."

She smiled at the expression; he was one of the few people she knew who actually _had_ a clock, which sat ticking cheerfully on a corner of the nightstand. He had brought it from home and had had a devil of a time adjusting its mechanism from a 12-hour to a 13-hour cycle to follow Bajor's 26-hour day. Despite his constant tinkering, it was rarely correct, but it added a nice touch of domestic warmth and charm that helped to offset the oppressive aura imposed by the stark Cardassian architecture. "Computer: half lights."

Suddenly she registered what he'd said, taking in the fact that he was wearing his favorite dark blue shirt and most disreputable old pair of pants. "Miles, aren't you supposed to be on duty?"

He feigned innocence, frowning at an imaginary chronometer on his wrist. "Well, I dunno. S'pose I could be configuring the shields on the weapons sails, or remodulating the sensors on the runabouts, or programming the replicators in Quark's so's they'd put out something edible... but that'd be a damned silly way to spend a vacation."

"A what?"

"A vacation. You know, what people do when they've got time to call their own. Some folks seem to like them, but then if you don't want it I can go ask Major Kira to fit me back into the duty roster."

"Don't you dare! But..." she trailed off, remembering the _last_ time they had tried to take a vacation. Her voice took on an edge in mock sternness. "No instruction or electrical code manuals?"

"Nope."

"No repair projects spread all over the dining table?"

"Unh uh." Dax had confiscated the security scanner filter switches he'd been reprogramming and tucked them safely away in her packrat's nest of a lab.

"No Cardassian kangaroo court asking me for inspirational words as my husband is sentenced to death?"

"Not this time."

"Hmph." She couldn't think of any other obstacles. Except... "Where's Molly?" Their daughter was an early -– and noisy -– riser and should have been clamoring for attention.

"Don't worry. I gave her her breakfast hours ago. Then I packed her off to her Uncle Julian's."

"You didn't." She started to giggle.

"Did I not! He said he'd be glad to watch her. Said it'd be good for him to 'experience the rigors of guardianship without all the responsibilities of parenthood,' " O'Brien quoted, in a fair approximation of the doctor's voice. By now she was rolling. It was good to see her like this again; from the look of her last night, she'd needed more than just rest.

She finally stopped laughing and wiped her eyes. "Well, he may not be speaking to you in a few days. So this had better be worth losing your friend for, O'Brien."

"Oh, I certainly hope so, lass, I certainly hope so."

They spent the next several hours eating a leisurely breakfast in bed (he'd given up bacon and eggs years ago, at her insistence, but couldn't bring himself to share her rice and fish first thing in the day) and just talking, with the exhilarating knowledge that there was nothing they had to do and nowhere they would rather be and no one they would rather be with.

* * *

The burly, affable Irishman and the delicate, reserved Japanese woman were not so unlikely a pair as they might seem at first glance. Both came from families who revered above all the traditions of their origins, traditions that both found stifling and almost comically anachronistic but which inevitably colored their outlooks on life. Both were incredibly stubborn: he, like a mule, she, like a rock; in their arguments it was usually she who won, her very immovability eventually bringing Miles around to her position until he was convinced it had been his. Fortunately, they were evenly matched in temperament, neither one being quick to anger or prone to hold a grudge once the storm had passed.

They had married fairly soon after first meeting, and each still delighted in discovering new things about the other. There had been only one truly rocky period in their relationship, when O'Brien had first been assigned to DS9 and Keiko had found herself frustrated by her own inactivity; the long separations dictated by her being on Bajor had, paradoxically, brought them closer together.

Commander Data had introduced them to one another at one of Guinan's mixers in Ten Forward on board the _Enterprise_, having calculated a high probability that their personalities and interests would be compatible. He had then hovered like a brooding hen for most of the evening to see how his experiment would conclude. Uncomfortable under the android's well-meaning scrutiny, Keiko had been far too polite, making the normally garrulous O'Brien nervous enough to be tongue-tied. But something in the flushed, honest, open face had told her that this was a fundamentally good man whom she wanted to get to know better. On an impulse, when Data's attention was directed elsewhere, she had asked O'Brien if he'd ever gone white-water kayaking before.

He hadn't expected that at all. Not from this fragile-looking woman who spent her days tending flowers. Intrigued, he had accepted her invitation to meet in the holodeck the following day. That had been the first time he'd dislocated his shoulder.

"_Read_ the water, O'Brien," she'd scolded, eyeing him unsympathetically as he lay gasping like a landed fish on the riverbank, his arm at an impossible angle. "You can't expect to fight a Class V rapid."

She hadn't fussed over him as she'd escorted him to Sickbay. He'd liked that about her (perhaps not at that moment, though he had to admit he was more upset at embarrassing himself in front of her than he was at her somewhat cavalier reaction), that she wasn't clingy and sentimental, that the porcelain doll exterior housed a steel core.

After a cooling-off interval, he had worked up the nerve to ask her out again. For dinner, this time, within the relatively safe confines of his quarters. They had talked for hours, and he had played his cello for her; she had listened, rapt, and astonished him by what he could later describe to himself only as fucking his brains out.

* * *

"So what d'you want to do today? Name it. Anything you like."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"Hmm... we could go to the Arboretum, check on the daylilies, see if the Vulcan orchids are blooming..." He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off, "... and make love in the azalea bushes."

He swallowed hard. Sometimes she came up with the damnedest things. "Keiko, honey, they dismantled the Arboretum -– no one was available to keep it up after you left and we needed the space for cargo." Dax had taken in most of the orphaned plants, which had promptly died; she and Kira had held a solemn funeral for the crisp remains before beaming them from a transporter pad on maximum dispersal.

Keiko didn't seem particularly upset. "Well, then, we could lock ourselves inside one of the holosuites and refuse to leave until Quark's bouncers break down the doors."

"Dance naked on the tables in the bar as they haul us out?"

"Of course. And sell holovids afterwards."

"Huh. Don't know as mine'd be worth a whole lot. Not much of a dancer, you know. Now you, on the other hand..."

"Wait -– have you finished that installing that burn unit you were telling me about?"

O'Brien was taken aback, jarred by the sudden shift in gears. A few months ago he'd had the idea of converting Ensign Melora Pazlar's old quarters into an intensive-care stasis field for Julian. The rooms had stood empty ever since Melora had been reassigned last year, and the zero-G generators already in place would be ideal in handling massive-trauma cases for which the Infirmary was much too small and inadequately-equipped.

Bashir had been oddly reluctant at first, but he was too good a doctor not to see the sense in it. Plasma burns were commonly sustained among the technicians who serviced DS9's unpredictable reactor cores, and already he had had to refer a number of patients to the nearest Starbase for lack of adequate facilities aboard the station. With the stasis field, he would be able to treat those cases, and because of this he'd taken to calling the as-yet-unbuilt ward the burn unit. As the project's developmental stages had progressed, Bashir's natural intellectual curiosity had gotten the better of him and he'd become more and more involved, making suggestions and requests and pointing out problems until O'Brien was almost sorry to have thought of the damn thing.

He'd mentioned it once or twice to Keiko during their weekly subspace communications, but caught her swallowing a yawn when he rattled on about the features they were implementing; he hadn't brought it up again, hadn't really thought she'd been paying attention. "It's just about finished. Why do you want to know?"

"Well, you can't very well put it to use without its having been thoroughly tested by the Chief of Operations who designed it."

"Tested? But it works fine. I checked it just..." He stopped, stymied by the unholy grin on her face. An image popped unbidden into his head, and he stared at her, his mouth a perfectly round O. "Y'know, you're absolutely right. Be a shame, all that work for nothing if anything went wrong in an emergency."

"Definitely."

"Got a reputation to maintain around here, after all."

"Are we going to discuss this all day, or do I have to start without you?" She headed out the door.

He started to follow, then stopped short. "Hold on -– I want to check on Julian. O'Brien to Dr. Bashir," he said, hastily activating the comm monitor.

"Bashir here." The doctor's face appeared almost instantly, as though he'd been waiting for someone to call. Not anxious, exactly, but he kept glancing to his right at something off the screen. "Anything the matter, Chief?"

"Not at all. Just wanted to see how you were getting along."

"See for yourself." Bashir ducked suddenly out of view, then came up holding Molly, who waved with one hand while clutching a tricorder in the other. "Hi, Daddy!"

"Hi, sweetheart. Did Uncle Julian put you to work?"

"Uh huh."

Julian's laugh was slightly forced. "So far we've gotten complete medical scans of the supply cabinets, the biobed, the jumja tree and the nurse's cat. Now, Molly," he said, making an ineffectual grab for the tricorder, "don't you think it's my turn to play with the toy?"

"No." An emphatic shake of the head, then the small body squirmed to be let down.

"Um... okay. Miles, don't worry, everything's taken care of here." He started glancing offscreen again, his head swivelling as his charge darted around the Infirmary.

"You're sure about that?" O'Brien was careful to keep his face expressionless, but he could hear Keiko beside him start to snuffle.

"Fine, fine. You and Keiko have a wonderful time. I'll see you in three days." A crash in the distance. Was it his imagination, or was Bashir looking longingly at the tray that held the sedative hyposprays?

"All right, Julian. And thanks." O'Brien broke off the link, locked eyes with his wife-and then the two of them clung helplessly to one another as they burst out laughing.

* * *

"Now, the main thing you've got to remember is that there's no such thing as 'down' in here, once the field is activated," O'Brien cautioned, his hands on the controls.

"Seems simple enough."

"I mean it -– it can be really confusing if you're not used to it."

"Just turn the thing on, will you, Miles?"

Shrugging, he did as he was told. He fought the initial wave of nausea as his inner ear sent conflicting messages to his stomach; then, as usual, delight in the sense of weightlessness took over. He looked at Keiko, who was halfway up a wall clinging grimly to one handhold while her foot was hooked around another; she glared at him, daring him to laugh. "C'mon, honey, it's easy. See," he called, springing lightly off the floor and rolling into a somersault, then untucking and coming to rest on what had been the ceiling.

"Showoff." She still hadn't moved. She shut her eyes; seeing him upside-down like that made her dizzy.

While he waited for her to make up her mind, he looked approvingly around at his handiwork. All the surfaces of the chamber were an identical matte gray; visual cues were a powerful influence and it was easier to deal with the disorientation when the eyes weren't constantly telling the brain that one was standing wrong-side-up. Instruments and other medical equipment were stored behind panels that recessed into the walls and could be pulled out as needed. A full array of sensor banks, tractor beams, modified holoemitter diodes and environmental controls ensured that the field could be configured to accommodate just about every species in the Federation and a few others, besides. _Try to requisition one of **these** babies_, he thought with pride.

He was not a born engineer, didn't have the obsessively meticulous mentality native to the profession; nor was he trained as one -– Dax had had more of a formal engineering background than he. But with engineering as with music, his mind saw how things worked and could be meshed together in innovative ways, taking intuitive leaps that left more methodical approaches in the dust.

He turned his attention back to his wife. Keiko was far too adventurous a soul to ignore an opportunity for a new experience for very long, and she despised cowardice, especially in herself. As he knew she eventually would, she eased her deathgrip on the handhold. "All right, here goes." She started to push off with both feet.

"No, wait, don't -– " It was too late: Keiko had already flipped upside down and slammed into the wall. Fortunately, the safety field absorbed most of the force of impact, but she was still winded as she drifted across the room.

He moved to catch hold of her. "Er... forgot to tell you. That old saw about 'every action having an equal and opposite reaction' really holds true in zero-G."

"Thanks a lot."

He held her until she got her breath back, then released her to let her experiment. It was strange; here, it was she who was clumsy and he who moved with graceful sureness. Of course, he'd spent any number of hours in an EVA suit outside the _Enterprise_ and the station, while she had never had even Starfleet's preliminary anti-grav training; still, it was interesting to have the tables turned.

The presence of an oxy-nitro atmosphere was helpful, lending resistance that a true vacuum could not have; Keiko found that by making swimming motions she could navigate to a wall from which she could then launch. She relaxed enough to enjoy her newfound freedom and was soon comfortably ricocheting off the safety fields, zooming from one corner to another.

She flew by him and tapped his shoulder: "Tag, you're it!" They chased each other around the room, two improbable birds wheeling in a midair mating dance. Suddenly abandoning the game, she hurled herself directly at him; they caught each other up tightly, not letting go even when they caromed gently off the walls.

Her long silky hair seemed to have a life of its own in here. He let it flow through his fingers. She ran her hands up and down his back, feeling the deep muscles shift with his slightest movement. The kiss grew more urgent, and soon they were almost clawing at one another in the need for something more.

"Maybe we should have done this first," she snickered, struggling with the fastener of his waistband; every time she tried to undo it, the two of them started rotating in opposite directions, making her laugh harder.

"Got an idea. Computer, lock low-level tractors on male and female humans in field." Blue energy beams obediently shot out, holding them in place so that they could take off their clothes, which then hovered around them haphazardly. He tried to shove the various articles aside, but they merely rebounded and fluttered back. This wasn't something he'd anticipated. "Computer, remove non-organic materials from environment." Instantly their clothing disappeared, undoubtedly scattered into individual atoms; he could have slapped himself for forgetting the computer's doggedly literal character in interpreting commands.

There was something else he'd forgotten. His skin was slick with sweat that clung to him in a thin film rather than running off; he tried shaking it away and was vaguely repulsed to see small blobs collect and break the surface tension to go wobbling through the air.

Keiko watched them as well, then snapped and caught one in her mouth as the droplets passed by. She had never minded that he sweated like a racehorse, though it embarrassed him at times. She, on the other hand, seemed to sweat only in vapor, even when exercising heavily; "Asian glands," she'd told him once, half-seriously.

She took the lead now, as she usually did when they made love. "Computer, discontinue tractor beam on female human." The beam blinked off, and Keiko propelled herself down him by curling her fingers through his chest hair, stopping when she reached his groin. She inspected the swollen member that bobbed amusingly before her. It was built like the rest of him: not very tall, but thick and sturdy. It seemed to be larger than usual -– probably some effect of the lack of gravity -– and the broad, acorn-shaped head was already shiny with clear secretions that were collecting in a globule. Inhaling his strong fern-like scent, she carefully took the delicately wrinkled sac into her mouth, teasing with her tongue the dense roundish bodies that played within. He moaned, and she moved to fasten her lips to the grooved underside of his shaft; using her tongue as a lever and grazing him occasionally with her teeth, slowly she worked her way to the tip.

The extraordinary sight of his wife floating perpendicular to him, tethered only by her mouth's hold on his cock, was so intensely erotic that he very nearly lost control. _Like some damned teenager_, he thought caustically, gently pushing her away to keep from coming. Understanding his desire to make this experience last, she grasped him firmly just below the head and slowly tightened her grip until his erection had subsided.

He reached down to pull her to him and their mouths met, for a long while just touching so that each could feel the tiniest tremor in the other's lips. Their breathing quickened, and they kissed more deeply, their tongues questing together hungrily. He pulled away, turning her so that her crotch was level with his head. "Computer, discontinue tractor beam," he said, then buried his face between her legs; he gasped as, unseen, her mouth closed over him and her hands brushed feather-light strokes over his balls and the ring of hairs around his asshole. He thought wildly that this was probably the first time this position had felt exactly right -– flexible and lithe as she was, it was still always slightly awkward in bed -– and they clutched blindly at each other, arms locked about the other's thighs.

He suckled at the firm slippery nubbin, running his tongue along its sides and dipping into the weeping crevice, savoring the taste of her. As she had taught him, he used his mouth and fingers and even his nose and hair to caress the warm wet folds; her hips began to rock, the undulating movements sending both of them spinning. Her legs scissored around his head, freeing his hands to roam over the rest of her while he gloried in the sweet pink cleft that pulsated like a sea anemone before his face; her high, sharp cries, muffled by the vise-grip of her thighs around his ears, ascended in keening crescendos as she climaxed, over and over.

Keiko had removed her mouth from his dripping cock and taken him into her deft hands, unable to trust that she would not bite him accidentally. In between the crests of her rolling, almost continuous orgasms she stroked him alternately firmly and ticklingly lightly, teasing open the vertical slit that poured out generously the slippery fluid which she used to lubricate the entire shaft. He began to groan in a familiar rhythmic pattern, and she quickened her motions in a manner that would have hurt him had he not been so aroused; his rocklike testicles drew up tightly, and then his body went rigid and still except for the uncontrollable jerking of his hips. The first spurts splashed her in the face; then she held him away from her and watched fascinated as his come pumped out in great arcs that hung lazily in the air.

They moved so that once again they faced each other, kissing and tasting themselves on each other but mostly just holding one another tightly. Time seemed to slow down, the first imperative blaze having cooled to a simmering glow; lingeringly, each now took great pleasure in more fully exploring the other's body. Keiko ran her hands along his shoulders and raked her nails across his back, playing with the sensitive base of his spine. Separating the firm cheeks of his ass, she delicately probed the tight opening with an agile finger; sliding the finger inside -– which he would never admit that he liked -– she heard him grunt as she expertly sought out the most sensitive spot.

O'Brien meanwhile was slowly kissing his way down her, as far as he could without breaking their embrace: first the fluttering eyelids, then the tip of her nose, then skirting her mouth to brush her cheekbones and jawline to reach the long elegant neck, the skin there so thin he could feel her pulse with his lips as he sucked hard enough to leave a mark. Slowly, inexorably, their passion swelled once again to a fevered pitch, mouths nearly devouring one another now.

His straining erection poked up insistently between them. Grasping his shoulders, she raised herself to the proper angle to mount him. He trembled from pure pleasure; she was so warm and so wet it was like being lowered into a tub of hot oil. He pulled her close, his mouth in her hair, her face at his neck, their legs entwined. They held still, the only movement for countless minutes the rippling of her inner muscles in wavelike contractions around him. Gradually, the infinitesimal frictions began to torment them both.

He found the effort to keep from thrusting into her frustrating -– they would just wind up tumbling in circles, and very likely his greater mass would send her hurtling into a wall; yet at the same time the restraint was enormously stimulating and his whole skin seemed to sing. Her nipples ground almost painfully into his chest as she clasped him tighter, as if trying to take him more deeply into her; her breathing grew harsh and irregular, and she began to make soft sounds in the back of her throat.

Her legs still locked around his hips, she maneuvered him up against a wall. He had no idea what she had in mind until suddenly she pushed off with her feet: the impact against the opposite wall resulted in a hammering plunge that was appallingly satisfying. Worriedly he checked her over (he had always secretly been afraid of crushing her, despite her assurances otherwise) but she seemed to be no worse for wear, looked rather triumphant, really. He caught on to her plan but turned so that it was he who took the brunt of the blows. He attempted to adjust the force and angle of the collisions but the two of them were soon careening out of control, jolting crazily from surface to surface in their increasing frenzy. With an agonized cry, she came, in wracking spasms that shook her entire body; he followed a moment later, undone by her convulsions that gripped him so deliciously, so unbearably tightly.

"Wow," she managed to say, her chest heaving as she clung to him, his spent cock slipping out of her.

"Goes double for me." She started to laugh. O'Brien looked at her, puzzled and a little defensive. "What is it?"

"I was just thinking that we're going to have to sneak into the Infirmary after hours."

"Why would -– are you hurt?" he asked apprehensively.

"No, not really, silly. But then you probably don't mind explaining to Julian how we got all these nice contusions."

Horrified, he examined her back, then craned around to peer at his own. She was right: small blood vessels had burst just under the surface and large areas of discoloration were already starting to show. Nothing serious that wouldn't resolve on its own, but they would spend a much more comfortable night with medical attention. "Maybe we can bribe the nurse to treat us," he suggested sheepishly.

"Maybe we can bribe the nurse to _join_ us."

He shuddered. "One of you is about all I can handle."

Wordlessly, they agreed to leave further investigation of the possibilities of their new playground for another time. O'Brien made sure they were standing on the correct surface and braced before deactivating the field. As soon as gravity was restored, their knees felt like putty, their insides abnormally heavy; as they adjusted, they watched the long ropes of ejaculate that still dangled in the air, mingled with drops of sweat and various unknown fluids, come pattering down. They stood together briefly in the sonic shower and then rummaged around for surgical scrubs to wear back to their quarters. O'Brien activated the room's sterilization cycle on their way out, and they held hands as they walked through the corridor.

"Well, Chief, do you feel that the equipment performed satisfactorily under experimental conditions?"

"Hmm... might be one or two bugs that need to be worked out." Especially that thing with their clothes;_ I really did like that shirt_. "Another test session tomorrow, then?"

"Definitely."

* * *

"Doctor, do you know anything about this?" Kira waved a duty log in his face, panting slightly from her sprint to the Infirmary but also from indignation.

Taking the padd from her, Bashir stared at the entry she had highlighted: _Chief of Operations M. O'Brien/Level 1 Diagnostic__ -– manual, all systems/Zero-Gravity Medical Facility/Stardates XXXXX__. "But that's the burn unit," he said, perplexed. Miles had evidently spent several hours there for each of the past few days. Why in the world would he... ? Bashir put two and two together, and his large eyes widened.

"That's right, the burn unit! Julian, the man sees his wife about once every two months. You couldn't have waited three days to have your diagnostics run?"

"Er... well, I didn't exactly _ask_ him to..."

"Dammit, that's even worse. And don't give me any crap about the Chief being dedicated to his work. Are all Terran males this incredibly pigheaded and insensitive or did we just get lucky?"

"But Major," he stammered, realizing he was beginning to babble and hoping she couldn't see him blush. "Well, um, it's vitally important that, um, everything work properly as soon as possible -– you see, it'll be especially useful in treating severe burn cases, since even with a full complement of dermal and neural regenerators it still takes several hours to fully anabolize large tracts of skin... " _Aha_, he thought, as her eyes glazed over, _got you_ -– "... and the absence of contact ensures that the new skin will heal unblemished... "

She tuned him out as he droned on. If O'Brien wanted to spend his vacation working, then she supposed that was his business. She just felt sorry for Keiko, who had come out all this way only to be ignored.


End file.
